Peter Maurin

By Dorothy Day

The Catholic Worker, May 1950, 1.

Summary: Recalls Peter Maurin’s revolutionary vision and program for the Catholic Worker on the anniversary of his death. (DDLW #928).

This month is not only the anniversary of the first issue of The Catholic Worker in 1932, but the first anniversary of the death of its founder, Peter Maurin, French peasant and philosopher, who lived with delight and zest the life of a poor worker. His is the program of indoctrination and love, exemplified by houses of hospitality and farming communes which we have been trying to establish throughout the country these last seventeen years. There are at present ten houses and six farms. He envisioned a society in which “it was easier for men to be good,” a long-range program which was neither Marxist nor Capitalist. He taught the practice of the works of mercy and voluntary poverty as a way of alleviating immediate needs and making a beginning of a new order. It is a green revolution in which we can all play a part.